…more Milano!
In terms of general getting around, the good old Milan metro (underground trains) got us from the few places we needed – the Duomo, Centrale Stazione, and Codorna Stazione. Similarly to Melbourne, Milan had old trams like our W75 class and newer trams too. We chose to walk a lot for the sake of window shopping and exploring and saving money!
My total expenditure for the weekend was 250 euros ($390 or £170) over three and a bit days, mostly spent on food. Drinks were quite expensive – $8 for an iced tea, $1.50 for a bottle of water – and we must have drunk at least four or so a day because it was just so hot!
The hostel in Bergamo was uncomfortable, we got there past midnight, but there was no air-con or even ceiling fans in the room, sleeping 8 females and it was full. Luckily Lija and I both got top bunks close to the small windows but there was no breeze until about 6in the morning and then the sun came up at 7am an dboy, was I awake.
Hence the lovely picture of me sleeping on the bus as a result of lack of sleep overnight!
Luckily the hotel we stayed in, in Milan, had a ceiling fan. It was so meant to be a single room but all doubles are one bed, so they shoved a makeshift bed in there which held the cupboard closed and meant the ensuite door didn’t open all the way!
We packed light, just our backpacks and shoulder bags, but I probably could have done with a few more clothes mainly because it was so hot we had to change mid-way through the day.
The sweat was disgusting, most of the day we were dripping, the small beads of sweat running down the small of my back – eek!
Sleazy Italians
I know it’s such a stereotype, but it is wholly the truth that the minute we stepped off the plane we were eyed off by every male that crossed our path. There’s not even an age barrier here, we got gawked at by dirty old men, while younger – but still old enough to be our fathers – men tried to chat us up.
In Como we had one guy when we were about to lie down and start sunbaking and he comes loitering along, sits down like 3 metres from us and lights up a cigarette. We stayed sitting up and finally Lija’s like, ‘Yes! He’s about to go’, but no, he came over and squatted in front of Lija and asks what her name is.
It was so funny, she’s like ‘I’m not telling,’ shaking her head with a blank expression on her face. He looked down then back up again with an inquisiting look. ‘What’s you name?’ he asked again. Lija looked at him and said, louder and more forceful – ‘I’m NOT telling. You can leave now,’ swishing her hand like she was swatting a fly. He walked off and we both just laughed at how pathetic that was.
Then there were the two guys on the way home on Saturday night, who were sort of walking behind/next to us, and talking about us in Italian while looking at both of us. Until one of them says ‘You are beautiful’ to Lija in English and she just laughed and said ‘Yeah I can understand that too!’. Anyway we got rid of them too – after turning and going on a detour to our hotel.
Listen, we also had the nice ones – don’t get me wrong. Once they know you’re Australian they think they have a right to be cheeky to us! We had this young guy in the restaurant we went to on Saturday night, our waiter, who thought it was so amusing we were from Australia.
When he brought our cutlery, and I was having pizza, he gave me two spoons – I sort of took them then looked at them and then back at him and he started laughing!
Then later on he brought us the bill and – they always place it face down – he sort of waited while we turned it up…and it was blank – we looked up at him standing there laughing at us!
Meh he was cute so we didn’t really care! Otherwise we would have told him to fob off.
The only thing worse than Italian sleazy men is Italian late night TV, luckily we could get the formula 1! haha
Homeless vs Beggars
Although Melbourne and London seem to have enough homeless people on the streets, Milan had a lot of beggars. The difference?
Beggars come up and harrass you for money – little old frail ladies, men playing an instrument while their wives collect money, little skinny children with their hands held out to you and limbless creatures that don’t even look human.
Language problems
Well, we didn’t really have a lot of these, but tried out our best one liners – par favore, grazie, ciao, dove le stazione (please, thankyou, bye, where is the station?)!
The one bit of trouble we had was on the train on the way to the airport on Monday. We bought our tickets from the machine and didnt realise you had to validate them. When the ticket inspector was coming around and everyone pulled out their tickets they were different to ours!
The lady went to Lija first, and looked at the ticket and then started talking to Lija, who just shook her head and said ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying’. She knew limited English and only managed to get out ‘yellow box’ and so we’re like shaking our shoulders in a ‘we never saw one the barriers were open look!
Well, she huffed and wrote something on the ticket and stamped it, then I got to go through the same process! Fun!
Ryanair sucks!
Ok, this is not an understatement, and has been backed up through the word of mouth of everyone we have so far spoken to in London. Although the flights were only £10, we then had to pay taxes, pay to get to and from Stansted airport and pay with our time.
We got delayed both on the way there and on the way back, we got moved at last minute to a different gate, and there’s no allocated seating which means pushy people were running(!) to get a spot first.
On both flights they had either run out of sanwiches/hot food or couldn’t make hot drinks, or didn’t have change! Also very unprofessional in that the captain went over the PA apologising for the delay but also making excuses – ‘it’s been a tough day, blah blah blah’! So wrong!
On Friday we were at the airport from 5pm till 10pm, were supposed to depart at 6.45pm. On Monday night it was the same, supposed to take off at 10pm, didn’t leave till quarter to eleven, didn’t get back till quarter to 12, missed the last Stansted express and tube lines closed so had to take a bus back and finally got home at 1ish in the morning. Oh yeah, and we both had to work at 8!
Tags: Travel
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